“Two Seasons: Winter-Spring 2016” Tournament. Online games for rating (reports, discussions).

This template hadn’t been played before, but we decided to give it a try. The respawn distribution was lousy — swordsmen were blocking the road, so I had to run around through the swamp. With the dragon, I got only 2 stacks of gnolls. But at least there were a respawn and a Dragon Fly Hive. I wasn’t as lucky with the computers as my opponent, whose number of captured castles grew every day.
In the first week, I found a Necromancy Cloak, jumped out to a Necro dwelling at +10%, and decided to level up Clavius. In the second week, I broke through the Dragon Fly Hive and the conservatory, then headed into the treasure zone. Using a scout on angels, I stumbled upon an opponent’s dwelling off-road, where I had to pay a ransom. I gathered my forces, returned from the treasure zone, and went to reclaim their gains. In just 2 turns, I took back most of the castles (5 castles: including 2 dwellings and 2 castles), all literally within 1 day’s travel of each other. I entered the Conflux, and there was a tower at level 5 (Magic Arrow, Implosion), but I didn’t have enough Wisdom for level 5.
But I lacked control, and the opponent kept trying to reclaim their castles (3 of them were Strongholds — what a tryhard ;) ). Meanwhile, I scouted a treasure zone in the swamp and broke through a Dragon Utopia there, where I snagged the Cape of Air.
Overall, the game turned out to be quite dynamic. Later, I built a portal to a castle at home and decided to finish off the opponent, who was roaming the underground in a treasure zone, but their stats had somehow shot up alarmingly and their troops showed as larger numbers. I decided to wait for them to come to me — you can’t last long on a single town, which I had left them out of 8 by that point.
I upgraded the skeletons (1k), 50 geese, took 12 angels, and decided to push. It seemed the opponent hadn’t managed to return to their castle with their army by the end of the turn, plus the hero icon wasn’t showing on the town (like they were inside). Day 7 — I decided to push, on double mana. Spells around 25, Sphere of Air, I pile on, but the guy was actually sitting there. Mana 250 vs 120, there are 10 angels, 60+ Wyverns, 1100 upgraded skeletons, 20-ish Rocs. So I start dishing out Implosion with 3k damage. In the end, by the battle’s conclusion, I had 3 stacks of skeletons — 1, 1, and ~70 units — against 4 Wyverns, ~100 skeletons, and a shooting castle :). And for some reason I wanted to cast Magic Arrow, but it went onto the ballista)) I should have summoned elementals (Book of Fire, Air), like Fire elementals, and then hit with the army next turn :) I got carried away, in short, it’s a shame. :)
Thanks for the game.